Media And Sport

When the British fashion design duo Antoni & Alison bought a derelict 1820s house, they spent a year, they say, "Going, 'Agh! What do we do with it?'" They wanted to respect its history but not to the point that it resembled an English Heritage property. The result is a surprisingly beautiful blend of giant Mr Blobby ornaments and painstakingly salvaged authenticity (above). On 17 September, as part of London Fashion Week, they open it to the public (open houselondon. org.uk). I asked Antoni what he'd learnt during the restoration...

It's not every quango that has Clint Eastwood lobbying for its retention. In fact, it's only one. But the Hollywood star has failed to save the UK Film Council, whose abolition is now confirmed, along with that of a handful of other bodies funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

With 10 days to go before the Coalition Government starts wielding the financial axe, sport is quaking in its trainers, fearing the worst. Of course, there is no reason why games and those who play them should be exempt from the coming cuts that will hit us all, even with the Olympics looming. But there are genuine concerns that while the Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, is fighting sport's corner, his boss at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the lambada-dancing Jeremy Hunt, may be rather less sympathetic. The ultra-ambitious Hunt has, I hear, already ruffled feathers at Locog, the 2012 Games organising com-mittee, despite his lack of sporting nous, and the worry is that he may be more protective of the luvvies than the jocks. So alarm bells are ringing in sports organisations, not least the cash distributors UK Sport and Sport England, who face budget cuts of up to 40 per cent. Even Robertson reckons sport has to be prepared for bad news, though he promises: "It is my absolute intention to protect funding for athletes and to make sure that all sports have their plans to increase participation up and running."

Only in Britain could a much-loved national monument be allowed to decay for more than two decades. And yet that has been the pitiful fate of Giles Gilbert Scott's 1935 masterpiece, Battersea Power Station. It is shameful, given that it is an integral part of the London skyline. Indeed, since the demise of the Crystal Palace in 1936, it is pretty much the symbol of south London.

The divine right of kings and queens to govern their own affairs has been the source of tension between Parliament and the sovereign ever since Charles I ordered soldiers into the House of Commons to arrest Oliver Cromwell and his fellow conspirators.